


New Stars, New Words

by apocahipster



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Crowley, Cherubim Aziraphale, Heaven, M/M, Pre-Fall (Good Omens), not raphael but still same gist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 13:09:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19830898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apocahipster/pseuds/apocahipster
Summary: The cherubim only just began existing when he meets the creator of the stars.The seraphim finds new inspiration.





	New Stars, New Words

“Well, you’re certainly new.”

The words caught the cherubim by surprise, but this was not unusual for him. Only recently had he begun existing, so everything was surprising to him. It was all very new and exciting. The cherubim turned, stifled for a moment as he struggled to push all of his wings and feathers aside. His body was also new and, in his defence, pretty damn complicated. He had many eyes but he was only good at using two so far, a pair located at the centre of his face, so he cleared the way so he could see the source of the noise.

So far, everything had been bright, white and gold, gleaming and serene. This was the first time he gazed upon ‘darkness’. A mass of black wings was before him, although heaven was easily visible in their form and design, as eyes as golden as the gates watched him curiously. He counted the number of wings. “Are you a seraphim?” the cherubim asked.

“Yes. But don’t get any funny ideas, they don’t all look like I do.”

“Why are your wings so dark?”

“I like them that way,” the seraphim said. Their voice, from somewhere deep inside their masses of wings, was defensive.

“No, no, I meant nothing by it. In fact, I rather like them too.”

The seraphim’s golden eyes looked in different directions, all sizing up a different part of the cherubim. Amongst them he spotted one eye with two pupils. How curious? How delightful?

“Do you have a face?” the cherubim asked.

“You ask a lot of questions,” the seraphim said. Slowly their six wings began to unfold, and for the first time ever, the cherubim saw the colour red. Long rusty hair fell in waves, before the ocean had been made to describe this shape and movement. The cherubim also spied golden eyes in the centre of their face, the same place as his own preferred eyes, which were now squinting under the gleam of a magnificent halo.

“Well someone likes to put on a light show,” the cherubim said, but there was a wilt of laughter in his words. It was a mismatched blend of statement and sentiment which the seraphim had never heard before. They rather liked it, as ways of talking went.

“Best you’ve seen yet?” they asked.

“It’s marvellous indeed, but I must be honest, absolutely everything has been just so impressive,” the cherubim said. “There’s so many things to take in and more and more things being made all the time. It’s almost overwhelming.”

The seraphim found the cherubim’s amazement to be endearing. “Why were you made, cherubim? What is your purpose?”

“I do not know yet. I don’t even have a name.”

The seraphim sat down against a pearly wall, and patted the spot beside them, inviting. The cherubim hadn’t ever thought to do that before, to take the walls of heaven and put his body against them. “That’s nifty,” he said, sitting down, “Wow, existence has so many exciting things to experience. _Existence, exciting, experience_. Those words sound interesting together.” Of course it was not English they were speaking, but the words he used also alliterated. He said them again and played with his tongue as he did so.

“Existence, exciting, experience. They do,” the seraphim agreed. “ _Exquisite,_ ” they added. “You know, I never thought to arrange words in an interesting way? Maybe that is your purpose?”

“Maybe. But I suppose it’s best to just wait for Her to tell me,” the cherubim said.

“She’s awfully busy,” the seraphim said. “I think She has something big planned. She’s had me working non-stop. I’ve been making so many things.”

“What have you been making? Have I already seen it?”

“Giant balls of fire, I call them stars,” the seraphim explained. In their palm a great round fire was summoned. The cherubim loved it instantly. He loved everything he experienced, but he loved this greatly. A smile spread across his mouth, the first of its kind. The seraphim watched it do so, admiring the strange shape on the cherubim’s face.

“Astonishing,” the cherubim said. The seraphim wondered how many times they would need to show the cherubim new things before he ran out of words to describe his wonder.

“God liked them. She asked me to make a thousand more and I did. Big ones, small ones. It’s hard. Not the making them part, but coming up with what to make next. How to make them all special. I want to make something new, but I need ideas,” the seraphim explained, still admiring the cherub’s face. They gazed deeply into his eyes, a gorgeous colour they had never seen before. Later, when the sky was made, they would bless Her decision to grace the whole world with that colour. But for now they rose to their feet. “I look forward to seeing who you become, cherubim.”

“And I can’t wait to see what you come up with next, seraphim,” the cherubim said with a jaunty wiggle of his body. It was a perplexing thing to do with one’s body, but the seraphim found it extremely charming.

“Have you heard of this fun new thing that God made,” the cherubim began. “Not made like you make stars but… invented I suppose? _Made exist_. Made into _a thing_. It’s called time. It is measured in days, I think? I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. It’s very confusing.” He was strolling arm in arm with the seraphim, a gesture of companionship which he had only just invented. The seraphim seemed to rather enjoy it.

“Yes, She told me about it yesterday – that is a term for time which has passed,” the seraphim explained. “I was making stars and She said, they mustn’t be the same their whole life. They need to change. They need to be born and they need to die. And I asked Her why? I love them, they’re my children I don’t want to lose them. And She said to trust Her. So, I made this.” They held out their hands showing off a blue ball of fire. “I call it a blue giant. It is what some stars look like before they die. I thought, if I must lose them, let them die beautiful.”

“It’s gorgeous,” the cherubim said leaning in close. “Blue is lovely. But I do so adore all of God’s colours.”

The seraphim dwelled on these words for a moment, and then they made something new. There were clouds swirling in many colours and stunning patterns. “This is where stars will be born. You like words, what shall it be called?”

“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly… I really don’t think _naming_ is what I was made to do,” the cherubim said, and his cheeks turned a red colour.

“I don’t think you were made to invent shapes and colours of the face reflecting emotions, but here you are doing that unabashedly. Rather skilfully I might add.”

The cherubim’s face went a deeper shade of red and he pulled a new kind of smile. Something which showed flattery and embarrassment, a perfect cover up for pride. “Do you think they are important enough to need a name also?”

“What about something like those words you liked. Exciting, experience… ex… ex… whatever the other one was.”

“Expressions,” the cherubim said. “I shall name them expressions. As for your stellar nurseries, I shall name them… nebulae.” He said it in a language which transcended the planes of existence. It spoke what the name of the birthplace of stars would be in all languages at once, forever coining the term.

“Nebulae,” the seraphim repeated. “I’ve never heard a word like that. Sounds funny on the tongue. Nebulae. Nebulae.”

“Well I figured, if I am to have a future of playing with words, I should have a variety of them to work with.”

“You really have no idea what your purpose is, do you?” the seraphim asked.

“None at all. Don’t suppose… that She forgot to tell me? Or worse yet, give me one at all.”

“No, no, of course not. I think, more likely, it might have something to do with what is being made. My stars and Her days, and this new thing called water.”

“Water?”

The seraphim’s face lit up. “You’re going to love this,” they pulled the cherubim’s arm, guiding him along the roads of heaven and eventually bringing him before a structure. There were several curious angels playing in and around it. “This is called a fountain, it holds water.” They reached in, a moment later withdrawing cupped hands where a small sampling of water was contained.

“It sure does like to move a lot,” the cherubim said watching it.

Then the seraphim poured it over the cherubim’s head. “Yes, it does,” they agreed, beaming one of the cherubim’s smiles.

“Astounding!” the cherubim said feeling the water drip from his hair down his shoulders and into his wings. “Oh, if I had been the one to create water I would be so proud.” Now his smile was so wide that his eyes also smiled. Even several eyes on his face which he still hadn’t used for seeing yet, smiled along. It was so beautiful that every time they saw it, the seraphim was almost convinced that that _must_ be what the cherubim was made to invent. Although, only seraphims seemed to have the job of creating things at the moment.

“You know, I just realised how rude it was of me to not ask,” the cherubim began, reaching his fingers into the water, still trying to understand the shape and feel of it. “Do you have a name?”

“Kokabiel,” the seraphim answered. “The stars are my purpose.”

“How wonderful. It must be lovely to know who you are and why you exist.”

“In one way,” Kokabiel said. “But in another, I wish I could know what it’s like to have what you have. Uncertainty. It allows creativity. A space to imagine and dream.”

“I dare say existence has come with enough uncertainty so far, beyond questions of my identity,” the cherubim said as water seeped between his fingers.

“Well, who knows, maybe that will be the point of all this. For living things to decide who they are. Maybe you’re the first? Maybe She will let you decide who you are?”

“I certainly hope not. I don’t think I’m capable of making such an important decision. What if I chose wrong?”

“Well then, maybe it’s about _discovering_ who you are. And like my stars you change from one thing to another until you get it right.” The curiosity and possibility of it all made the cherubim see all of Kokabiel’s stars shine in their eyes.

“Maybe there is no right answer at all,” the cherubim pondered.

“Now _that_ would be a real toss up.”

“Certainly be a test and a half, I dare say,” the cherubim agreed. “No, that can’t be it at all. I don’t see the point of all that nonsense.”

“Dunno, seems alright to me,” Kokabiel said. If the cherubim had invented the gesture yet, they would’ve shrugged. “Makes sense, don’t you think, if you’re the one who has to do things then you should be the one who decides what those things are, cause you're the one who's gotta do ‘em.”

The cherubim chuckled, a downright ethereal noise. “As long as _you_ don’t chose making art with words to be your thing, I suppose it can’t be so bad.”

Kokabiel’s eyes narrowed. Offended, but smiling. Mischievous. He clapped his hands together and made a new nebula. It showed the tall dark figure of the seraphim, their long robe and wings trailing downwards. Their head and wavy hair was looking down at the white cherubim, much smaller but with a radiant glowing halo behind his head, being held in his seraphim’s arms adoringly.

The cherubim fell into silence, staring awestricken.

“I already have my craft,” Kokabiel said. They sauntered away, leaving the nebula behind for the cherubim to fawn over. Now out of the range of sight of the cherubim’s preferred eyes, Kokabiel smiled.

“Fire,” the cherubim said. It was almost sunset, the fifth day coming to an end, and they both had the feeling tomorrow was going to be a rather big one. “All She has told me is that I will be a wielder of fire.”

The seraphim smiled. They were getting rather accustomed to smiling. It showed that they were happy, an emotion they had been experiencing quite frequently recently. “I make fire,” they said. The pair sat side by side, looking at the newly created birds bathe in water which had been warmed by one of Kokabiel’s stars. “It’s another thing we’ll have in common.”

But the cherubim wasn’t smiling. Instead he looked pensive. “I don’t care about fire,” a moment later panic crossed his face. “I mean, for myself. _Your_ fire, your stars are wonderful. But me… I don’t think I care about making things with fire.”

“Fire can destroy things too. Trees for example, terrible with fire,” Kokabiel explained.

“I don’t want to destroy _anything_. Everything only just started existing,” the cherubim said. He sounded distressed.

“That’s how I felt about my stars. But letting them die also feels right. I guess that’s all I can say. Do what feels right. She made you perfectly. So, when she gives you fire, do with it what feels like the thing _you_ should do. And by definition, by Her perfection, it will be what you were meant to do,” the seraphim explained. They reached one arm around the cherubim’s shoulders. The cherubim was rather proud of his facial expressions, but this expression was something far more impressive. He was almost offended that Kokabiel was impeding on his territory, but then he thought, what’s wrong with a little creative competition? He reached one hand out and took Kokabiel’s free hand. He linked their fingers together. It felt amazing. He was waiting for Kokabiel to sing praise to this new invention, but the seraphim was lost for words. A little while later, Kokabiel’s fingers gave a soft squeeze. It was a gesture which took two angels to perfect.

On the seventh day, the cherubim was given a name and was told who he was. His name was Aziraphale, and he was a guardian. He ran through all of heaven searching, but Kokabiel was nowhere to be found.

And then Aziraphale was on Earth, in Eden.

He loved Adam and Eve as he loved the trees and the animals and the water.

He loved the warmth of The Sun on his smiling face, Kokabiel’s most famous star.

And when the time came, he remembered that he was a guardian, and he gave away his sword to protect them. So that they could make their own decisions on who they wanted to be.

Despite all of his worries, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it _felt right_.

And when God asked where his sword was, he was terrified, but not ashamed. The Lord lifted him up, tore the wings from his back, and when he landed back in Eden he was no longer a cherubim. He was a principality.

 _You ask a lot of questions_.

It had been a harmless statement, he reflected as he climbed the stairs of the great wall. He still had two perfectly good wings, but he was used to flying with the four and he wasn’t exactly in the mood to learn a new physical skill right now.

Questions had been popular with many angels, especially the lower hierarchy ones who had known the least. You couldn’t blame them, everything was new and extremely confusing. And then Lucifer fell. And Aziraphale and all the angels had become too terrified to ask questions.

But when Aziraphale reached the top of the staircase, his back finally no longer bleeding but instead pouring with sweat, he asked himself, _‘Why would She punish me for just being who I am?’_

It was the most dangerous thought he had ever had, and he bottled it away, supressed it, locked it up. A task made easier by a sudden hissing in his ear.

Aziraphale reached out, taking Crowley’s hand in his. The touch roused the demon from sleep and he squeezed the hand back as he turned his head to face Aziraphale. Six thousand years they’d known each other, having met on that wall in Eden, and six thousand years later those serpentine eyes looking into sky blue still made love bloom between them.

“Can’t sleep?” Crowley asked.

“No. I… I’ve been overthinking and I’ve been making myself scared again,” Aziraphale said.

“Scared of what?” Crowley asked, rolling closer and pulling his angel into a warm embrace. The world was a scary place, now that the apocalypse had been averted. For years the end of the world was their number one major concern and now… now the future was uncertain. There was no back up Great Plan. Great Plan B in case Great Plan A didn’t happen. Now nothing was written, at least not where anyone who spoke to anyone else could see it. Crowley was both afraid and excited by the uncertainty of what would come next. Aziraphale however, was mostly just afraid.

“Hell,” Aziraphale said. “To think that it’s a place familiar with my lover, but it’s so… unknown… terrifying to me.”

“I’m more afraid of heaven,” Crowley said. “A place where you’re told you’re loved, but the moment you show who you really are they kick you out. Or try to burn you.”

“Well they did give me a warning slap on the wrist a while ago,” Aziraphale said. “Or rather on the back.”

Crowley didn’t quite register the statement.

“I thought I would’ve fallen a long time ago,” Aziraphale continued. “I’ve broken a lot of rules. Asked the odd question or two, myself.”

“I know the romantic thing to say would be, _of course you won’t fall angel, you’re perfect_. But the honest thing is, I’m surprised too. You’re quite the bastard, an indulger and…”

“A pretty shitty angel.”

“I was going to say, _rebellious._ ”

“What did you do that was so bad?” Aziraphale asked. “Bad enough to throw you out?”

Crowley was hesitant. “I… well I’ll tell you if you promise not to… you know, ask the same questions, I suppose. I don’t want this to be your ‘how to guide’ in regards to falling.”

“I’ll be careful, love.”

“I asked a lot of questions. I met someone, he asked a lot of questions and it sort of rubbed off on me.”

“Lucifer?”

“No, someone else. He asked a lot of questions because he was curious. I knew the answers and telling him made him so… happy. And it made me simply euphoric to tell him. So, God was also doing strange things, and I thought, maybe it would make Her happy if I asked about them. I asked why things had to die. Why she made angels before giving them a purpose. Why she made sadness and uncertainty. Why not just let everyone be happy and in love? And then one day I asked her… if I love everything, what is the next highest emotion, because there is an angel who makes me feel a way I do not understand. And She said it is an angel’s place to love all equally. To use my love for him to elevate how much I love everything else. And I thought, bugger that, I’ll just ask him instead. I’ll ask him because he was really good at coming up with words,” Crowley explained.

There was a smile on Aziraphale’s face, and for a moment he wondered how it would look with a dozen eyes smiling along with it.

“And then I thought… while I’m here, might as well ask one more. I asked, why do millipedes need so many legs, when all the other animals get by just fine with a perfectly reasonable amount? Heck, the snake doesn’t need any. And that was it.”

“ _That_ was it?!” Aziraphale asked, incredulous.

“That was it,” Crowley said simply.

“Well… I don’t think you need to worry about me asking _that_ question.”

“It’s the other one I’m more worried about,” Crowley said, reaching out and tucking a strand of hair behind Aziraphale’s ear. “If you love everything, how do you describe how you feel about… him…”

Aziraphale fell into thought. “I asked that one too, just never out loud.”

“You loved someone else? Did you find an answer?”

“No. I lost them, actually,” Aziraphale said. “We knew each other six days, and a little bit before that.”

Crowley’s brows furrowed. “Aziraphale… were you made, _specifically_ , to guard the Eastern Gate?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale explained. “I was given my sword and my name on the seventh day. My purpose.”

“And… your… whoever they were… did they have a name before you lost them?”

“Kokabiel,” Aziraphale instantly recalled, unable to supress the smile on his lips. “They made the stars.”

“I know,” Crowley said. “They made a nebula which looked just like the two of you.”

Aziraphale was pulled from his daze, finally looking at Crowley again. His mouth opened, agape and then shut again.

“Not too long after you decided that’s what they should be called. Nebulae,” Crowley said. “Still a funny word.”

Aziraphale’s blue eyes searched frantically for answers, only seeing serpent slithers nestled amongst… a glowing deep yellow, the colour of the golden gates. The room was enveloped in darkness, it was the middle of the night and the blinds were shut, and Aziraphale remembered the first time he saw the colour black. He remembered the first time he saw a bird with black feathers, wondering if somewhere in heaven Kokabiel had captured another heart, made the inventor of birds fall in love with them and create a creature in their likeness.

Aziraphale was blinded for a moment as Crowley’s phone screen lit up the dark room. Honestly, what was he doing on it, _at this moment?!_ But a few seconds later, Crowley turned his screen showing a photo. A nebula. _Their_ nebula. It was exactly as it had been burned into his memory.

“The humans found it,” Crowley explained.

Aziraphale shot up, angry now, knocking the phone across the room as he shook Crowley’s shoulders.

“IT WAS YOU ALL ALONG! WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY ANYTHING!”

Crowley’s voice came out many octaves higher than Aziraphale had ever heard it, “I didn’t know it was you until just now!”

“You… you should’ve recognised me!”

“You’re a principality! You look way different to a cherubim. There’s less…” Crowley’s hand waved about his face. “Less glow-y, less wings, and less… well I’d say less pompousness but that’s not true. Now I know what all the frills and bowties have been compensating for all these years. Hey and while we’re at it why didn’t _you_ recognise _me_?”

“You were a snake!” Aziraphale said. “You didn’t have a face or red hair again for many, many centuries and I didn’t see your wings either so…” Aziraphale’s head fell into Crowley’s chest, exhausted. Another ‘ex’ word which Aziraphale prided in inventing. “I never thought to connect the dots.”

They were silent for a long time, just hands touching skin comfortingly as they both pondered their new revelation, their own private questions being answered after so many years.

“Suppose we ought to come up with a word for it now?” Aziraphale eventually asked, breaking the silence.

“For what?”

“Our love beyond that of heaven’s all encompassing love,” Aziraphale said. “How much I love you.”

“Our transangelic love?” Crowley said. He thought on it for a while, as did Aziraphale.

“Maybe there is no one word,” Aziraphale said.

“How about this,” Crowley said, sitting up. “I’m glad I found my purpose.”

“Even though I had been given to you right at the beginning? Maybe that’s why I was made early, to find you?”

“Only She can say if we were literally made for each other, angel. But either way, I chose you. And that’s all I wanted all along, wasn’t it? To choose my purpose.”

Aziraphale smiled fondly, not a single detail of the expression lost to Crowley’s night vision. “I’m glad you got a choice, I rather say, I had absolutely no words on the matter.”

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on tumblr: apocahipster
> 
> all the inspirations for this story  
> -Crowley as Kokabiel, from Diamond Sky Above Titanic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2077209/chapters/4518417  
> -Crowley making star stuff inspired by Aziraphale: https://s-art-urnzalia.tumblr.com/post/186284798135/first-meetings?fbclid=IwAR0STLlE5gqQoTgmOV1HDl0JCp1GKSSGHeu48gU__T2Of6Gg7kRrDCcTV5Y  
> -Nebula image: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/hubble_anniversary/STScI-2005-12b.html  
> -And of course the 382572938572 Raphael fics I've read


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